The record changer (Jan-Dec 1950)

10 J' t JOE AND CfCIU MADISON Ray Foxley's latest jazz record arrived this 'month directly from the Birmingham Jazz Club in London. Pressed on Tailgate No. 6, it features the band's version of Steamboat Stomp/ Beale St. Blues. It was recorded from the dance floor and subsequent crowd noise along with poor microphone distribution do not help the Foxley outfit a bit. Steamboat has some fair trumpet by Gardiner but the side suffers through the listener's unconscious comparison to the great Jelly-Roll's version of the tune. Beale St. contains more ideas and comes off at a much better clip. Some fine solos all around combine to make this a worth-, while item to add to the collector's shelves. There's a deal hanging fire to have Tempo issue many of the previously cut and unissued Foxley's. We hope it goes through. The latest Foxley session has scheduled Papa Dip/Cannon Ball Blues. Choice of OVERSEAS JAZZ RELEASES tunes is really fine ; most of them haven't been worked to death. Helmut Brandt and his young German band do Dixieland Jazz Fantasy/ Blues in the Night oh Metrophon. 6004. Although it's only fair musically, it's a showpiece for any collection. Fantasy side is a semi-Didn't He Ramble version, while Blues in the Night' kicks off quite well with the boys going at an easy pace. Both sides are plagued by one of the worst recording jobs we've ever heard on wax. However, overlooking the sad side, this band really shows promise. From Chile comes that old sound we've been zvaiting for. Dig -this without paper clips, thumb tacks or rubber flaps, Herman Prado and Fernado Morello get together on two pianos to produce that old piano roll effect. It's on Vi. 90-0292, Boogie Del Huelen/ 12th St. Rag. Both sides are swell, and this is a must if vou can snare a contact Eight Bar Johnson was the father of Boogie Woogie! CHARLIE WEED NO. *J OF AH IMPORTANT SERIES (Charlie Weed, one of the best white cornet players of the mid-twenties, has just come forth with some of his amazing reminiscences of. the days when jazz was jazz and swing ivasn't.) It was in Kansas City that boogie woogie was born. I know. I was there. 1 was just walking along a side street minding my own business when I tripped and accidentally fell down a flight of stairs into a cellar speakeasy. There were a lot of things going on (here, but I got up right away and headed for the bandstand. There was a three-piece band on the stand, consisting of a one-armed, colored piano player, a drummer and a man with a sad expression on .his face and a pawn ticket in his hand. The piano only had forty-four keys, all on the left hand side of the piano, and the pianist's one remaining arm happened to be his right one. It was a hard job for him to reach across his stomach and get his right hand at the keys, half of which were out of tune, so I asked him why he didn't move his chair over. He gave me a horrified look and explained that it was against the union rules of that day.1 I didn't realize it at the time, but the man to whom 1 was speaking was the great Eight-Bar Johnson, who later was killed in a fall from the roof of a boxcar.2 There was nothing outstanding in the fact that Eight-Bar played the way he did. It was only natural. I merely wish to state that Eight-Bar Johnson originated boogie woogie piano playing. Most present-day pianists use their left hands for the lower part of the keyboard, and vice versa, but on the old, unavailable records you can still detect the lost art of right-hand boogie woogie as created by Eight-Bar Johnson. Because this great one-armed piano player HAD to play the bass, notes with his right hand, his followers grew accustomed to the style, and even the ones with two hands crossed their arms and played that way. Unfortunately this great style had died out, and the inferior pianists of today prostitute their Art bv playing the bass notes with their LEFT HANDS! -1 1 This rule has since been modified, largely through the efforts of Rudi Blesh. 2 Charlie Weed was ahle to say, years later: "I saw Eight-Bar fall!" •t This is not entirely true. Joe Shmushkin, a present day pianist, has often been seen playing this way, with crossed arms, but he is fast becoming commercialized like everybody else. Roy Foxley in Chile. This is one of the most interesting foreign piano records to come our way. Scheduled for immediate release on Dutch De., the Dutch Swing College has just waxed Fidgety Feet/ That's a Plenty and Tin Roof Bl/Royal Garden Bl. Eric Krans Dixieland Pipers (Morton style, the man says) have recorded what our informant terms a "fantastically good" version of Keyhold Bl, and the cats are trying to squeeze Decca into issuing it. The two groups of the Hot Club of Buenos Aires have just recorded four sides for Argentine Victor. Scheduled for immediate release, are Stardust and Darktown Strutters Ball. Collector's Corner: Kurt Michaelis, Sasstr. 34 Leipzig N 22, USSR Zone, Germany, wishes US trades. Kurt is one of the best known of European jazz collectors and his tastes run entirely in Dixie. Available for trade are USSR records as well as the first German postwar jazz records which will shortly be impossible to obtain due to limited pressings occasioned by shellac shortage. Eric Swinbands, 21 Sunniside Drive, South Shields, England, will pay premium prices in trades for his wants which consist of James Johnson QRS piano rolls and Fats Waller accompaniments and organ solos. M. Shipman, 77 Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath, Kent, England, desires jazz trades with US collectors. His jazz wants are many. John Westwood, 129 Dalston Gardens, Stanmore, Middlesex, England, a member of the Sheffield Jazz Club, desires trades with US. John is able to supply Tailgate label featuring the best Dixie efforts of the present English bands.